Carla Cametti PD: articles

Diana Glenn plays detective Carla Cametti.

A girl's own crime story

Debi Enker meets our latest sassy screen detective.

YOU can almost smell the scaloppine, taste the tiramisu and savour the soave in Carla Cametti PD. The new six-part series from SBS has a distinctly Italian flavour, even though it assiduously avoids the obvious location of Lygon Street in its vibrant evocation of Melbourne's Italian community.

"We try to use the city as much as we can," says Diana Glenn, who plays the title character and appears in almost 95 per cent of the scenes. "There's a European feel to it, as there is in Melbourne. But it's not that cliched Italian: it's cosmopolitan and modern."

So it's not red-and-white chequered tablecloths or straw-wrapped bottles of chianti at the Cametti family restaurant, located in Hardware Lane, on the premises of the shuttered CBD icon, Campari. "The lovely thing about Carla Cametti is that it's not cliched," says Vince Colosimo, who plays the heroine's Italian-stallion love interest, detective senior sergeant Luciano Gandolfi. "It's subtle and it's about people now. We know where we come from, we know our culture. And whether you're from a Greek background, or Polish, or Croatian, you know the feeling of a European family."

The idea of a contemporary look combined with a traditional family feel was something agreed upon early by producers Cristina Pozzan and Elisa Argenzio, director Ian Watson, director of photography Leilani Hannah and production designer Paddy Reardon. They wanted to bring a warmth and a vitality to the tale of a feisty female private eye.

"Carla's sassy and sexy and comfortable in herself," says Pozzan. "She's independent, she's intelligent, she more or less knows what she wants. She's part of the crossover generation: she loves her family, her cultural background is very much a part of who she is, but she's not a slave to the traditions."

The word "sassy" comes up a lot in discussion about the heroine and the idea of a drama built around a female lead, a spirited young Italian woman, was initiated by SBS commissioning editor of drama, Carole Sklan. Carla's world was then fleshed out by co-creators and writers Jo Martino and Samantha Winston, and writers Kris Mrksa and Liz Doran.

Like the producers, Glenn feels a palpable affection for Carla. "She's bossy and strong and a bit bold," says Glenn. "She takes the world by storm, but there's a warmth and a generosity with her. There's also a sassiness about her and she's quite happy in her own skin. She's actually quite daggy, with a lovely vulnerability and clumsiness. She's constantly getting dumped on by someone for doing the wrong thing and she takes that in her stride and keeps on pushing. There's heart to her, and there's comedy. There's charm to her failings. She tries to be all sassy with Gandolfi and she'll drop her martini, or she's showing off her new car and she's got a parking ticket. Something always undermines her coolness."

If describing Carla comes easily, classifying the series woven around her is a bit more complicated. It's a crime story, a portrait of a family and a community, and a bouquet to female friendship. It has comedy and romance. It has food. "It's a hybrid," says Pozzan. "It's hard to pigeonhole into a genre." Series director Watson says that his own shorthand description is a Girl's Own adventure story.

There are several girls and a number of adventures. Carla lives with her best friend, Lisa Testro (Nicole da Silva), the soon-to-be-married daughter of the distinctly shady Joe (Tony Poli). A murder investigation renews their contact with a widowed school friend, Georgina (Julie Eckersley). "The relationship between Carla and Lisa is gorgeous," says Glenn. "The female friendships in the show are written really well: they're not sentimentalised, they have a fun and a vibrancy."

The gal-pal theme, with its attendant clubbing, cocktail-drinking and confession scenes, covers terrain similar to that traversed by Sex and the City. The Italian-inflected crime elements bring to mind The Sopranos and Underbelly. But most strongly Carla Cametti connects to a popular strand of crime fiction: anyone who's read Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books will recognise the turf.

Evanovich's — yes, sassy — New Jersey bounty hunter has a constantly critical mother, a lovingly indulgent father, a gutsy grandma and a handsome cop lurking with intent. Carla's story begins, as so many of these stories do, with our intrepid investigator on a case and stumbling across a dead body. The case involves a possibly fraudulent personal-injury claim and requires a visit to a nightclub. The body's discovered in the goal square at the local soccer club and the tentacles of the crime ensnare Carla, her family, friends and dodgy acquaintances.

There's also family business to deal with. Carla's mother Angela (Dina Panozzo) has some issues with her only child. "My daughter, who could have a proper job and a gorgeous man, like a lawyer, is in her 30s and she's a detective," says Panozzo mimicking Angela's mindset. "What is that? She spies on people in their underwear.

"She comes home, I pick on her, I feed her. It's par for the course that I criticise. Most Italians do this: 'I love you, but you're too fat.' 'I love you, what's with your hair?' 'I love you, you could do better.' There's great suffering and you have to earn the love. I like that mess."

Amid the mess, Carla and Gandolfi play a flirty game of cat and mouse. There are tart, teasing exchanges in clubs and hungry looks across crowded rooms. Then, typically, Carla charges into the fray and Gandolfi waits knowingly in the wings, ready to extricate her from the trouble she's hurtled into.

A certain chemistry between them was necessary to make the series spark and Watson, who had directed Glenn and Colosimo in The Secret Life of Us, suggested the half-Greek actress for Carla. The producers had Colosimo in mind from the start. Argenzio says: "Vince is such a strong presence and Gandolfi is such a strong character, you've got to have somebody who's got the balls to stand up to that."

Watson reckons that, with Glenn, they found a perfect match. "They've got chemistry because they distract each other on set. Scenes with Diana and Vince are hard to get shot because they fly with each other: they chatter and play. You have to try to harness that into the scene, hold it down and shoot it."

Both of the actors have been busy lately and the producers had to revise their original production schedule to accommodate Glenn's availability. She's recently appeared as high-class hooker Chloe in Foxtel's Satisfaction and as Dr Olivia Bates in Nine's short-lived Canal Road.

Colosimo made an indelible mark as Alphonse Gangitano in Underbelly, shot Nine's telemovie Scorched and appeared alongside Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in Ridley Scott's Body of Lies. So how does it feel to go from a $US70 million ($A99 million) international spy thriller to a $A5.2 million SBS series? "I was standing with Ridley Scott in the middle of Rabat, about two hours from Casablanca, with 300 or 400 people on the set," says Colosimo. "He's got five cameras and people from around the world working for him. There's a helicopter and there are hundreds of extras and he's blown this up and he's blown that up.

"But you get down to the crux of it, when you're there talking to the director, whether it's Ridley Scott or Ian Watson, we're doing the same thing: he says 'Action' and I've got to do it … It's just that there's a lot more at stake if you have to ask for a second shot with Ridley Scott.

"It's all about the acting and the script and the people you're working with, the sense of humour. If I can have a good time, walk away feeling good about that day's work, they're the same thing. It's just on a larger scale. I've really enjoyed myself on this SBS show and I'd do it again with them."

Colosimo's pleasure in the production was reflected by the genial mood on set, created in part, says Colosimo, by Watson's calm demeanour. Last May, in the final week of a very fast eight-week shoot, a number of night shoots were required for wedding reception scenes at Ripponlea. There was cheerful camaraderie in the catering tent as "breakfast" was served at 3pm to start the working day. "The catering is fabulous," enthused Panozzo, tucking into a bowl of congee. "Italian producers, they know about food. Actors, we all start really healthy in the morning; you do your breathing, you eat well. But by 2am, we're running around like wild dogs eating anything."

If you can predict what you might see on screen by the atmosphere on set towards the end of a fast-paced shoot, it augurs well for Carla Cametti PD. The mood was upbeat and there was evident pride in the production from cast and crew. "I'd love Carla Cametti to go to a second series," said Glenn. "It's been a happy experience." She might get her wish: SBS says a sequel is "under consideration".